Willowdean and Bo's undefined romance

Willowdean and Bo’s undefined romance develops as a relationship both of them want but Willowdean cannot make public or formally accept. Its uncertainty does not come from a lack of affection: Bo tells her he wants to be with her, and she acknowledges that she likes him. Instead, her fear of being judged for her body turns a private connection into a test of whether she can believe she deserves to be seen with him. The romance remains unresolved, exposing the distance between knowing what she wants and feeling able to claim it.

Development and Conditions

Their connection begins over the summer, when Willowdean and Bo meet through work. By the time she tries to explain it to Hannah, the relationship has been on and off, with more than one kiss and occasions when they hold hands. Bo wants to make the relationship official, while Willowdean recognizes that this is what she wants too. But wanting it does not settle her uncertainty: she cannot understand why he likes her and fears that other people will not understand what he sees in her either.

The distinction between private affection and public recognition becomes especially important to Willowdean. In a conversation with Hannah, she imagines an alternative world where Bo could be her boyfriend without anyone else knowing. The fantasy makes the word itself newly consequential: naming the relationship would not merely describe what happens between them, but would expose it to other people’s attention. Hannah suggests that labels can make things easier for observers, as if naming a relationship reassures everyone else. Willowdean sees the force of that argument, yet labels also offer her a sense of safety. With Bo, she wants that certainty and cannot bring herself to give him an answer.

Affection and Body-Image Conflict

Willowdean’s hesitation is bound to her fear of how others will interpret the couple. She tells Hannah that people like Patrick Thomas could make Bo’s interest in her a reason to ridicule them. Her concern is not presented as a general objection to relationships or a lack of attraction. She wants to be with Bo, but imagines that classmates will scrutinize them and question why he chose her. She fears that becoming visible as his girlfriend would make her vulnerable to the same judgments she already faces about her size.

Her difficulty also emerges in private moments of affection. When she later tells Ellen the story, Willowdean explains that kissing Bo made her feel intensely swept up, but that affectionate touch could also make her suddenly self-conscious about her body. She remembers becoming angry at herself for feeling bad about her appearance because of a boy, even though she did not want to be someone whose self-worth depended on male approval. The contradiction is central: desire brings closeness, while the possibility of being physically seen awakens shame and makes her withdraw.

When Bo asks her directly what she wants, Willowdean makes that conflict explicit. She gestures to her body and asks why he wants to be with someone like her, then immediately regrets making her body the issue. Bo answers that his feelings are for her, not for a hypothetical version of her, and tells her that he wants to go places with her and be her escort at the pageant. His willingness to be seen with her directly challenges the judgment she anticipates. Willowdean still asks what people will think when they see them holding hands. Her obstacle is therefore not evidence that Bo is ashamed of her; it is her expectation that the surrounding community will turn their relationship into a spectacle.

Confession and Competing Perspectives

Willowdean’s uncertainty also affects her friendship with Mitch Lewis. When Mitch sees her talking with Bo, she responds defensively and feels guilty about the history between them: she and Bo have kissed and sometimes hold hands, even though she has resisted defining what that means. Mitch asks whether she likes Bo. After taking time to answer, Willowdean says that she does. Mitch wishes her luck with the pageant and leaves through the employee exit. She recognizes the loss of one of her few friends and believes that, if anyone is at fault, it is her. The exchange makes the cost of keeping the relationship undefined tangible: the uncertainty that protects Willowdean from public exposure does not prevent other people from being hurt by it.

Later, Willowdean tells Ellen the story she had withheld. She admits that she met Bo at work, that they kissed repeatedly, and that she liked how being with him made her feel. She has not had sex with him, and what she shares is focused on affection, discomfort, and the fear of being judged. Ellen listens as Willowdean recounts the summer, her encounters with Bo, her experiences with Mitch and the dance, and Bo’s wish to be her boyfriend. The disclosure lets Willowdean place her conflicting reactions in a relationship she trusts rather than keeping them isolated as a private failing.

Ellen offers a different way of thinking about public judgment. She acknowledges that people may laugh at her and Tim, but argues that a relationship belongs to the two people in it, not to the people watching. She distinguishes what the heart wants from the decision to make a relationship exclusive, and points out that Bo has already made his choice. Her advice does not erase Willowdean’s fear or choose for her. Instead, it clarifies that the existence of spectators does not make their opinions the same thing as the couple’s own decision.

Refusal and Unresolved Ending

In the driveway, Bo tells Willowdean plainly that he wants to be with her but cannot do so if she will not let him. He explains that his feelings are strong and that he wants to be seen with her, including as her pageant escort. Willowdean does not deny that she likes him. She says she cannot proceed, even while recognizing that fear of other people’s whispers is helping to govern her choice. Bo’s assurance that he finds her beautiful meets the self-judgment she has brought into the conversation, but it cannot settle that judgment for her. She kisses him once more, then leaves, understanding that her refusal reaches beyond the immediate question of whether to date him.

The relationship is therefore not resolved by the confession, the kiss, or Bo’s declaration. Willowdean has heard him choose her and has admitted her own feelings, but she cannot yet translate that mutual affection into a public commitment. The difference between beauty and fatness remains difficult for her to reconcile within herself, even as Bo’s response presents them as compatible. Her decision reflects the limits of reassurance when shame has become part of how she anticipates other people’s attention.

After the pageant, Willowdean goes to Harpy’s, where Bo is working. He comes around the corner with a red sucker, pulls his apron down to his waist, and greets her by name with a broad grin. Willowdean sighs. The moment confirms that they are again in one another’s presence and that the emotional charge between them has not simply disappeared; it does not, however, establish that they have become a couple. The ending preserves the romance’s defining uncertainty: affection is visible, but the label and commitment Willowdean has struggled to accept remain unsettled.